Last year, swollen belly and puffy feet, we decorated for Christmas the day after Halloween.  I didn’t care that people told me it was too early.  I wanted to arrive home from the hospital to twinkling lights and a freezer full of peanut butter buckeyes.  A new tradition was born.

Tonight I blanketed the kitchen table in a striped tablecloth and served family-style.  Candles lit, pot roast savored and Big Band Christmas carols played in the background.  A few friends came to enjoy dinner and help put together  my Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  As Tripp examined the fake fir branches, we puffed and poufed a tree that had been sitting, silent, in a box for almost a year.  A tree that welcomed that little boy home from the hospital last year.

So much has happened this past year.  This year has brought more happiness and treasures than I could have ever imagined.

From now on, we will be decorating and celebrating with friends long before the Black Friday sales.  This is the time of year when the air smells crisp, pumpkin taste good in everything, the sun shines perfectly in the backyard, and little people awaken from their naps for an afternoon swing.

From the eyes of an almost one year old, this doesn’t look much like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree at all but a vision of magic and twinkling lights.